Autoimmune diseases occur when the body's immune system stops working properly and takes up arms against relatives and friends. The body thus avenges man for the fact that he does not protect him and wears out. Rheumatoid arthritis, vitiligo, myocarditis, rheumatism of the heart, thyroiditis, psoriasis, diabetes - all these are diagnoses that are made during the development of autoimmune diseases in the body. You can continue to list, there are a lot of diseases.
Rheumatologists, endocrinologists, neurologists and doctors of other specialties have been trying for more than half a century to find the exact causes of autoimmune diseases. The main one is the failure of the immune system, which occurs after a serious viral, less often bacterial infection of the body.
Autoimmune diseases develop in this order:
1. The virus, entering the cells, changes their structure. Immunity actively fights infected cells. A person does not give the body at this moment enough time to completely recover, the disease drags on, immunity gets used to destroy the cells of one organ or another (heart, joints, lungs, blood - that organ that is infected with the virus). As a result, a large number of organ cells undergo destruction, the organ ceases to cope with its functions, and the inflammatory process of tissues begins.
2. Tissues are destroyed, their particles enter the bloodstream, which contains a large amount of antibodies that develop immunity to these tissues. Naturally, these particles are again perceived by the body as enemies and the immune system begins to destroy the already inflamed organ even more. The process closes. An autoimmune reaction occurs.
In addition to neglect of your health, autoimmune diseases can occur for other reasons. Cells of bacteria that infect the body may initially resemble human organ cells. As a result, immunity simply gets lost due to the same structure and continues to fight the pest, even when it is already destroyed. There are no bacteria, but similar cells remained in the body. It is they who become victims of an attack of developed antibodies.
Other external causes of the disease are radiation, environmental pollution of water and air, which leads to mutations in the cells. The immune system does not tolerate such cells in the body and begins to fight them. Then everything goes according to the same scenario. The result is autoimmune diseases that are inherited. An example is diabetes, hemophilia, psoriasis and others.
The treatment of autoimmune diseases is very difficult. In fact, these diseases are incurable, it is only possible to slow down the process of organ destruction. For this, it is periodically necessary to clean the blood of antibodies with sorbents. In very severe cases, they resort to suppression of immunity in order to slow down the production of antibodies. However, this leads to a weakening of the whole organism.
The treatment of autoimmune diseases with the help of medications is primarily aimed at maintaining the impaired functions of the organs susceptible to attack. So, for example, with autoimmune diseases of the endocrine system (pancreas, thyroid gland, ovaries), lifelong administration of synthetic hormones is prescribed, which are no longer able to produce damaged glands (estrogen, insulin, thyroxine).
When arthritis is often prescribed non-steroidal drugs that slow down inflammation, reduce pain in the joints, but do not stop, and sometimes even accelerate the process of tissue destruction.
Autoimmune diseases should be treated by a very competent specialist, since many medications cause serious side effects, which are sometimes even more dangerous than the disease itself. So, for example, if the hormones of the thyroid gland are taken improperly, the entire endocrine system can go out of balance , which will ultimately lead to the failure of the whole organism.
Most people who suffer from autoimmune diseases are forced to simply accept that this happened and learn to live with them, to the best of their ability to help the body cope with impaired functions and protect their health from new infections.